Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Hail, Strong Amazon Sisters! Below is Part II of GayProf and me's blog conversation. In the interests of fairness, I'll warn all of you who tuned in excited to hear GayProf's secret to coffee ring removal: the secrets are not revealed below. He's just a terrible, terrible tease.

Bourgeois Nerd (BN): What is the difference between your blog personality and your real one?In my case the two are similar, but not identical.Internet anonymity definitely allows me to feel free to say things I’m definitely too chicken to say in real life.But blogging also highlights and magnifies certain characteristics that I don’t think are as noticeable to anyone who knows me in real life, at least maybe outside of my family and closest friends.Writing allows me to express my interior life much more freely.I’m quite neurotic, but most of that is inside and not really visible without careful observation over a very long period of time, whereas I think judging by the blog you might wonder why I’m not in therapy five days a week (and I probably should be).

GayProf (GP): Well, I think we sorta established that my blog started as a cheap form of therapy.

I agree that blogging magnifies more subtle elements that are in your personality. In “real life,” I am quite shy. When my blog was in full swing, the two most common comments that I would get when I met people from the blog were “I thought you’d be funnier” and “I thought you’d be taller.” Truth be told, though, I am sooo much better looking than GayProf.

BN: Funny, I’m much uglier than Bourgeois Nerd.Seriously, though, I totally relate to the “quite shy” thing, though I’m much, much less so than I used to be.At one point in my life, I literally didn’t want to buy things because that would mean going to the register and interacting with the cashier.

GP: Sadly, I prefer the self checkout stands because it means I don’t have to interact with an actual person. Maybe I am more of a misanthrope than GayProf!

BN: Oh, while I do have a bit of a misanthropic streak, my cashier-aversion was so much worse than that: I was afraid they were judging me and laughing at me.Truth is, they don’t give a shit, but I was afraid anyway.

GP: That sounds like some intense social phobia.Have you worked through that?

BN:It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, though occasionally it flares up.

I’m curious as to whether or not your “real friends” know and read about your blog. The only friends I have who read it are friends I have FROM blogging, none of whom I’ve actually ever met. I know some people are really paranoid or at least wary of people they know in real life discovering their online writing, not without some justification. It’s never really come up for me, so I’m not entirely sure how I feel.

GP: My original intent was to keep the blog totally pseudonymous.As a friend who once stumbled on my blog told me, however, “You’re real identity is as transparent as a certain superheroine’s plane.” Let’s face it, there just aren’t that many gay men who also happen to teach Chicano studies in the Midwest.So a few people who I know beyond the blog have stumbled across it at different times.There have only been two posts that I have ever deleted on my blog that had to do with me rethinking who might be reading it.

I have had the opposite happen quite often, though. My blog has resulted in some really great friendships off line.

BN: How have we lasted as long as we have?I celebrated Bourgeois Nerd’s fifth anniversary in December, and as I said then, it amazes and humbles me how many other, better blogs have come and gone while I’m still around.

GP: We have lasted because we clearly don’t have anything better to do with our time.I kid, I kid.

BN: You kid, but it’s pretty much true in my case!

GP: The blogosphere is a funny place.At just five years, I feel like a seasoned veteran.People should call me Dame GayProf.

BN: “There ain’t nothing like a daaaaaaaaame…”Sorry, that just popped into my head.

GP: I have some ideas, but I’d love to hear how you think that blogosphere has changed over the past five years.What about gay blogging?

BN: I mean, I don’t have proof or anything, but I think gay blogging has gotten more political over time.Joe. My. God., for instance, has gone from stories of Joe’s life to activism and news aggregation.Even the gossip bloggers are much more “militant,” I think.Considering the times, it isn’t surprising.It’s almost impossible to be a non-porn gay blogger and not be political today (and even a lot of the porn blogs are political).I really miss Joe’s stories, though.

GP: It seems to me that gay blogging has become less personal.Though I actually think Joe’s personal stories were political (And, just to be clear, I think being political is a good thing). He discussed a point in gay history that too many people have forgotten.The act of remembering itself was a political gesture.

BN: That’s what I liked most about his stories: they were recording a history that needs to be remembered, especially since relatively few are left who can do so.My friend, and big blog brother, Scott at Bill in Exile [NSFW] does the same sort of thing.They’re very hard for him, though, I know.After a few of them, he’s too emotionally drained to do it for a long while.I can understand that; whenever I read about that time, I’m amazed that those who did survive aren’t just totally insane from the loss.I’m glad I didn’t live through it.But I’m just as glad that there are those who can tell me about it.

GP: I do like that the current gay blogging is often geared to being vigilant about news and issues related to the queer community.At times, though, I wonder if my ol’ fashioned style of blogging has gone out of vogue.People would rather have the news aggregates that are updated several times an hour than a post that appears every few days.It’s the CNN effect on blogging.

BN: No, GayProf, it’s not you, it’s the blogs that got small!Actually, though, while perhaps “out of vogue,” I think there’s still an audience for longer-form, more personal narrative stuff.It’ll probably make a comeback any day now; you’ll be at the vanguard!

How do you feel your blogging has changed?

GP: Uh – Well, it is a lot less frequent.

Like others, I think my blog also became less personal. In the early years, I tended to mix together a combination of things that were happening in my life with thought-pieces about media. Now I rarely write about personal details in my life. That is also linked to the flimsy pseudonym.

BN: Yes, there is an air of mystery, now, to GayProf’s life.But since my lurid fantasies are probably more salacious than the reality, that’s okay.

I like to think I’ve improved my writing, but I’m not really the one to judge.As I prepared for BN’s fifth anniversary, I had to go back and reread everything I’ve posted, and I think I’ve definitely become more discerning.I don’t feel like I have to post three times a day anymore.(I also don’t have the time now to do that, of course.)Not everything I read that is even vaguely interesting has to have a post and a link, either.I also feel freer to do different things.My recent posts on Nothing and Infinity were something I don’t think I would have done four years ago.

GP: The simple act of having to produce content keeps the mind turning.I notice it is hard for me to sit down and write a post if I have been away.Once I post once, though, it does gear me to think about other ideas for posting.

Monday, May 17, 2010

And now for something a little different. Join me this week as GayProf and I talk about blogging in Man's World. Part I is up now; tomorrow Part II will be found here. Don't make me use GayProf's magic lasso to get you to read!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Friday, May 14, 2010

In CVS this afternoon, I was wandering around looking for some eyedrops when I noticed a middle-aged man and a high-school age boy at the condom rack (or the "Family Planning" section as the pharmacy put it). I briefly wondered if I should be calling the cops, but based on the resemblance between the two, decided it was probably a father getting his son some protection for the prom that was this evening. Good for him, I thought, and wanted to congratulate him on being a responsible, reasonable parent with a strong, open relationship with his son. Instead of sticking his head in the sand and pretending it won't happen, or that talking about birth control will somehow only encourage it and mumbling some bullshit abstinence crap and calling it a day, he was proactive in making sure his son was safe and wouldn't be bringing home a grandchild or giving a girl the clap. I couldn't, of course, actually say that to him, so I'll say it here: "Kudos, sir! Kudos!"

Also, to the girl: "You go, bitch!" With the muscles straining underneath his Underarmor shirt (I think it said he was on the baseball team), the young man in question was a fine specimen.

Friday, May 07, 2010

You know how sometimes you read something and it just hits a nerve and sends you right upon onto your soapbox? What sent me into a mini-tizzy earlier in the week was this part of this post:

"Once upon a time, I too was a late bloomer. I too eschewed encounters with everyone I thought might be gay as they just weren't my cup of tea. The problem though wasn't with me or with the gays, it was with what 'society' taught me was gay. One day though, it turned out that gay guys weren't just Will and Jack. They weren't the screamy loud people whose lives revolved around their sexuality, adorned in bright rainbow costumes with the butt-cheek cutaways."

What, exactly, is wrong with those who are loud, screamy queens prancing about with their butts hanging out? I am very glad that we recognize more and more that gay people come in a wide range of behaviors and colors and personalities (just like real people!), but the problem is that it seems like more and more it's become less "Yay, we're all different!" and more "Ugh, fags! Go away now so we can be boring straight conformists and/or all masculine with our beards and our sports. You're embarrassing us." That? Is just straight-up internal homophobia.

We gays, of all people, should be able to celebrate being different, and understand the importance of being able to be one's self, even when that self doesn't fit comfortably into the boxes and preconception-checklists society constructs. All human beings deserve such consideration. I'm not even particularly femmey, but I admire those who are, that have the guts to be themselves in the face of societal censure. That takes balls, balls I'm not sure I could muster. I can, to a certain extent hide (though I think I'm a flaming queen, and the kids at school certainly picked up on it, in the real world, apparently I don't act queeny enough for people to immediately glom on), but they can't, and they don't, but they shouldn't even have to contemplate it.

There definitely needs to be representation in the media and in the culture of a broader spectrum of the diversity of the homosexual experience. I just feel that part of the push for that from gay people involves far too much "queen-shaming" if I may coin a ridiculous term. The Jacks and Kurts and such exist and they should be represented, too. What would we be without them? We just need everyone else represented, too.

(I'm not saying, BTW, that you have to love every single gay person you meet, no matter what they act like. A lot of gay guys and lesbians and transgenders and every other permutation of sexuality/gender are assholes. Just like real people!)

/soapbox... for now. I'll let loose my screed about gay misogyny and lesbian separatism, and how gays and lesbians shouldn't be so alienated from each other as they sometimes are, and how we all should treat the transgendered with more understanding and acceptance, but that's for another time.

There's a new memeasking, "What was your first order on Amazon?" I admit, I was quite curious; I really had no idea. Turns out, my first order was in 2001 for this book. Since then, I've spent more money and ordered more books than I care to contemplate.